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5/24/2006 Three Commodore distance runners will compete Friday in Knoxville with a berth in the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships at stake. Senior Erika Schneble and junior Amy Huss will compete in the 5,000-meter run at the NCAA Mideast Regionals while senior Caitlin Shannon is attempt to advance in the 800 meters. The 5,000-meter final and 800-meter preliminaries are scheduled Friday night at the University of Tennessee’s Tom Black track facility. The trio are attempting to join a fourth Commodore athlete who has previously qualified for the upcoming NCAA Championships. In capturing the Southeastern Conference heptathlon two weeks ago with a personal best performance, senior Garnetta Holloway advanced to the NCAA heptathlon scheduled June 7-8 in Sacramento, Calif. Vanderbilt Head Coach Lori Shepard said Schneble, Huss and Shannon are training well in preparation for the regionals. “I have a good feeling that each of them will perform very well. Erika and Amy are ready for their best efforts and Caitlin’s training is going extremely well. All three are prepared for big races,” Shepard said. Schneble, Huss and Shannon will need to run races approaching career bests to advance in the highly competitive regional. With entry into the NCAA Championships guaranteed only for the top five finishers in each event, Shannon enters seeded 24th in the 800, while Huss and Schneble are seeded 15th and 21st, respectively, in the 5000. Schneble is the only Commodore runner to ever earn outdoor All-America honors at a distance beyond 800 meters. In 2004, coming off a 5,000-meter individual win at the SEC Championships, Schneble finished eighth in the NCAA 5,000 while running on a painful lower leg. As Schneble prepares for the regionals, the senior from Hendersonville, N.C. is just now overcoming the foot injury. After missing all of 2005, Schneble returned to competition this March. In late April, with a solid 17:02 at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, she was displayed the talent reminiscent of 2004. Schneble ran 16:58 at the Vanderbilt Invitational, then shocked a field of 5,000-meter runners at the SEC Championships two weeks ago by taking 20 seconds off her seasonal best in a second place finish behind Auburn’s Angela Homan. To advance to the national championships, Schneble and Huss need to approach Schneble’s school record of 16:08.18 established in 2004. Seven runners expected to compete in the Mideast regional, including the sixth seeded Homan, have run sub-16:12 this season. Huss, from Wyomissing, Pa., enters the meet with a career best of 16:29.66, also established at the Penn Relays. Shannon will also need a career best performance in the 800. A resident of DePere, Wisc., Shannon will likely need to lower her best this season of 2:09.21 by more than a second in the preliminaries to advance to the 800-meter finals Saturday. |
